Joe “Guido” Welsh, the renegade analog synth wiz responsible for 2004’s audacious Thelonious Moog project Yes We Didn’t, switches to guitar for this scorching homage to mid-’70s fusion, with direct references along the way to six-stringers Carlos Santana, Jeff Beck and Al Di Meola. Precise lines and burning unisons predominate on wailing, Minimoog-laden anthems like “The Busybody,” “Candy Cigarettes” and “Sons of 1974” (that last cut including a nod to prog-rockers Emerson, Lake & Palmer). The clave-fueled “Utopia (Con Carne)” is Todd Rundgren meets Di Meola at Tito Puente’s house, while the funky “Hickory Dickory,” a direct nod to Stanley Clarke’s “Silly Putty,” from his 1975 classic, Journey to Love, has Welsh and guest guitarist Reeves Gabrels engaging in some sick-toned call-and-response. “Cross I” sounds like an outtake from Return to Forever’s Romantic Warrior (it specifically brings to mind “Sorceress”). Saxophonist Jim Hoke plays a John Klemmer-ish echo-laden tenor on the mellow “Buddy Love,” and Welsh unleashes with fusiony abandon on “That Crazy Shit (Almost Caught On),” his ode to a bygone era. They don’t make ’em like this anymore.
Originally PublishedJoe “Guido” Welsh: Nothing Left to Say
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